» Aubrey Beardsley BiographyBy Susan Belmont - July 5, 2003 |
Aubrey Beardsley’s life was like that of a comet: he shined for a short period of time and when he started to have the possibility of shining even more, he passed away.
The
Beginning
Aubrey
was born in a low middle-class family in Brighton, England in 1872. He had a
sister called Mabel, and both of them were considered artistic prodigies in
their childhood. At the age of 9, his battle against tuberculosis started and
would last through his lifetime.
His first poem was published in 1885, in a school publication, then in 1887 his illustrations were published in a school journal and a school book. By this time he was working as a clerk, and in spite of the small success he made with his artistic work, it only served to have him get frustrated with his job.
Things started to change when he and his sister went (uninvited) to visit Sir Edward Burne-Jones studio. A servant sent them away quite soon, but Mabel’s red hair caught the attention of the great painter and he agreed to take a look on the boy’s drawings, later recommending him to attend classes at the Westminster School of Art.
The Middle
The following
year he started working with English playwright and poet Oscar Wilde and made
the illustrations of his play “Salome” and eventually even translated it to
French.
That was when he began to get notorious in the British art scene, being talked about in the press and being hired to become the art editor of a famous art and literature quarterly called “The Yellow Book”. But one year later, in 1895 he was dismissed because of Oscar Wilde’s problems with the law!
That is, just because he had done some illustrations to him, he was almost blamed for the same accusation that fell on Wilde: sodomy! But that’s how things were in old England…Nothing like progress!
Well, back to Aubrey’s life, he managed to go on with his career by starting to work on another magazine, “The Savoy”. The project ended in 1896, but he went on making illustrations to Pope’s “The Rape of the lock”, among other great books, including his own “A book of fifty drawings”.
The End
Maybe
you’re looking at the illustrations on this page and thinking “What’s
Gothic about them?”, but you know, I always thought Beardsley was the dark
illustrator of the Art Nouveau period, not because he made illustrations to
Poe’s books, but because all his illustrations had a sinister quality, like
the “Salome” one showing at left.
And
if you’re thinking that the past was all about beautiful frolicking images in
florid woods, etc, and only the 20th century started showing all the
darkness we have inside us, forget about it.
It’s
time for you to know the works of masters like Hyeronimus Bosch, Gustave Doré
and the monk master-painters of the Middle Ages, who made images so dark and
horrifying that can only be compared to a Stephen King story!
But this is for the following issues! Bye, bye!
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Copyright © 2003 Susan Belmont